September 9, 2003

It's the end of another long day and I wish I could come back to you right now, but work is keeping me. It shouldn't take too long though, so I hope there won't be much more waiting before I can see you again.

Right now I'm waiting for my source to sync, then all I have to do is start a build before I can start the drive home.

I realize it's been a long time since I last wrote you. I hope you realize I love you just as much as ever, if not more. You've certainly been working very hard getting the house in order. That's really appreciated. It's too bad we have our little disagreements sometimes, but that doesn't change how important you are too me. Small things are easy to forget.

This sync is taking a long time, so I seem to have a lot of time to spare. Hmm, unfortunately, I seem to have run out of things to say. I guess I'll just leave it at that and go browse the rest of Everything2 until my sync is done.

I had hoped to write my first big email from Israel in happier
circumstances, but you
know what i'm like with getting emails written.

Some of you knew within a few moments, while this may be the first thing
others of you
will have heard. But last night there was a terrorist attack just a little
way from where I
live at Café Hillel on Emek Refaim - one of my favourite hangouts for
evenings in
Jerusalem. Emek Refaim is in a great area of Jerusalem, modern and
attractive with
some of the lowest levels of political and religious tensions in Jeruslem,
and home to
many English-speaking immigrants. and Café Hillel is (or was) the best
example of this.
A shiny, non-Starbucksy, moderately-priced coffee and food outlet, with
inside and
outside seating. Glass-fronted, stylised mock-Parisian branding, waiters
in black logo'd
t-shirts and red aprons. and, unlike its closest rival on Emek Refaim, it
has kashrut
supervsion, which means that it is patronised by both the religious and
the secular.

This being the case, it wasn't surprising that, on the evening of my third
day of full
yeshiva study, I was there at the time it was attacked, drinking my second
cup of tea
with a big bunch of nana (spearmint) in it, with Naomi, a friend of
mine.

I think we were very near to the blast, perhaps 5 or 6 metres, but I think
the walls of the
cafe must have blocked it from where we were sitting at the front of the
outdoors section,
as we didn't feel it, apart from some of the heat. but we saw the burst of
fire and heard the
boom. I tripped over whilst running away from the scene, and scraped my
hands on
shattered glass, and so after being taken in by a nearby family and having
called
Naomi's cousin, we went to hospital for my hands and Naomi's shock to be
treated.

so, apart from little bits of glass in my hands and an after-concert
effect in one ear, i'm
physically fine. I think I'm mentally fine too. I didn't really see
anything apart from the
flash of fire and people running, so not too many bad images are going
round in my
head.

A big thankyou to all those who called, IM'ed and emailed (or sent their
doctor son-in-
law who works at the hospital) last night to check up on me and send
their best wishes,
as well as my flatmates who stayed up until early this morning with me. It
really meant a
huge deal to me.

of course, this changes nothing. whether i'm safe by 3m or by a few days
or by two
streets along, etc. (as is anyone who goes on a bus, the centre of town,
the market,
cafes, major roads...) makes little difference to me, as the future
dangers remain the
same. this is how i understand the world. and i've been crossing the busy
road outside
the yeshiva too.

and peace will come. someday soon, young palestinians won't be taken in by
the
murderous doctrines of Hamas and their kind, if only because they will
have nothing to
gain and a full life in their own land to lose.